Skoda Motorsport is starting a campaign to search for young talented drivers. Juuso Nordgren will be together with his co-driver Tapio Suominen the first young gun to drive a Skoda Fabia R5. He will compete at RallyRACC Catalunya – Rallye de España (05/10/–08/10/2017), the Spanish round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC).
“After prematurely winning the title in the WRC 2 category of the World Rally Championship, we are now looking for young talented drivers. This Young Drivers Program will be launched at RallyRACC Catalunya – Rallye de España and will continue with testing promising new talents like Juuso Nordgren. He attracted our attention as a young driver with an interesting potential,” explains Skoda Motorsport boss Michal Hrabánek.
20-year-old Juuso Nordgren was born in Karkkila, a village in the northwest of Helsinki, an area where also living rally legend Markku Alén comes from. In 2015 Nordgren became Finnish Junior Champion and was named “Future Rally Star of Finland 2016”. During Rally Finland 2017 he won four stages driving a private Skoda Fabia R5.
“I’m so grateful to Skoda for putting so much faith in me and giving me this amazing opportunity,” says Juuso Nordgren.
The Finn will start at RallyRACC Catalunya – Rallye de España as part of the Skoda factory team. Alongside him will be the regular crew Jan Kopecký/Pavel Dresler.
Skoda Motorsport is starting a campaign to search for young talented drivers
Numerous world-class drivers started their career in a Skoda Fabia rally car. Andreas Mikkelsen from Norway won the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) in 2011 and 2012 with a S2000. After that, he became a works driver in the Word Rally Championship for Volkswagen Motorsport. Regular World Rally Championship driver Juho Hänninen from Finland won the IRC in 2010, stepping up to FIA S-WRC Champion in 2011. On both occasions, he was driving a Fabia S2000. Last but not least, Esapekka Lappi became WRC 2 Champion in the World Rally Championship 2016 driving a Fabia R5. In 2017, he also moved on to the WRC top-class achieving his first overall win on World Rally Championship level at Rally Finland.
Fly-mode ✔ #RallyFinland #WRC2 pic.twitter.com/xapj3jUqkN
— Juuso Nordgren (@JuusoNordgren) July 27, 2017
